Product DescriptionStar Wars: Knights of the Old Republic takes you into the distant past of the Star Wars universe -- over 4,000 years before Episode I, when battles raged between the Jedi and the Sith!
Amazon.com Review Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic takes place just a few years after the Mandolorian Wars, thousands of years before the events in the Star Wars movies we know and love. Two Jedi, master Revan and his apprentice Malak, led the Republic's forces to victory and pursued the Mandalorians into deep space only to return as Dark Jedi at the head of a huge fleet of Sith warships. Only the Force powers of the Jedi Bastila prevented the Sith from overwhelming the Republic's weakened forces. At the start of the game Malak has usurped control of the Sith by betraying Revan and has attacked the ship carrying Bastila and yourself. In true Star Wars style, the game begins with a bang.
The storyline could have been a standard coming-of-age yarn but is instead a genuinely interesting adventure told with humor, compassion, and respect for the source material. Your character has a mystical bond with Bastila, and the two of you share some kind of connection to the Sith villains Darth Malak and Darth Revan. The game's planet-hopping adventures are driven by your exploration of these connections and how they relate to your larger goal of discovering the source of the Sith's sudden fleet. During your adventure you can explore side quests minor (such as racing swoops or gambling) and major (such as uncovering the fascinating back stories of your companions). Star Wars fans will get a kick out of the rich lore introduced in the game, particularly the Tatooine storyline that reveals the origin and history of the Sand People.
Gameplay is an abbreviated form of Wizards of the Coast's d20 Star Wars RPG game system--anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons will be familiar with the abilities, stats, feats, and bonuses in this game. The player creates a character as a member of one of three starting classes (soldier, smuggler, scout) and then later chooses a Jedi class (guardian, consular, sentinel). Joining the player's character are other Jedi, warriors, thieves, droids, a wookiee, and even a Mandolorian. Unlike the faceless non-player characters of other games, each member of the supporting cast has an intriguing history and even agenda. Up to two of these other characters can join your character at any time. Depending on who you chose to take with you, new dialogue and even intra-party arguments come into the game (put the Mandalorian veteran with the Republic patriot and you'll see sparks fly). Combat is real-time turn-based, meaning the turns are seamless but the player has the option of pausing the action at any time to issue orders or direct any character to use a certain Force power, ability, feat, or item.
Graphics range from adequate to exceptional. Building and character models are not impressive--about what you get in GTA 3. Lightsaber graphics and environmental effects (like waving grass, clouds, and weather) bring the world to life. Battles are just brilliant, with characters pumping out blaster fire at Jedi who dash, dodge, and even deflect the bolts back toward their assailants. Complete with sounds straight out of the movies, the thrilling combat is pure Star Wars.
All in all, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a masterpiece of Star Wars gaming. The pacing, balance of action and dialogue, clever puzzles and quests, and loving attention to detail have set the bar very high for role-playing games in general and Star Wars games in particular. Consider this a must-have game.--Mike Fehlauer
Pros:
- Captivating storyline
- Clever dialogue
- Star Wars feel
- True story and dialogue support for either Light Side or Dark Side play
- Brilliant combat graphics
- Fascinating characters (the loyal--and homicidal--droid HK-47 is truly unique)
Cons: - Occasional bugs in dialogue, movie playback
- Cannot transfer equipped gear between characters while on your ship
Customer Reviews
Sorry, I think this is one of the WORST Star Wars games (2008-10-15)
I picked this game up a few months back. I got it because I just got through with Mass Effect and loved that game. Well the folks who did Mass Effect for the most part also had a hand in making this Star Wars game, Knights of the Old Republic.
I'll make this short, because I think some people need to know just how flipping boring this game is. The dialogue is okay. You have to read it, and there is no actual speach. I can live with that, especially since this game did come out a few years back.
However, the action sequences are left the game found wanting. You press a button, and watch your characters do all the work. "Wow. That's it?!" Is what I thought to myself. I'm not much of an RPG guy, but when I hear the words "ACTION" and "FUN TO PLAY" associated with it, I tend to think their might be some challenging action scenes to go along with a game with story line. You know, something like Deus Ex, or Mass Effect. Heck, even the Final Fantasy guys get it right year after year. I say all of that, so I don't get people flaming me saying I just don't like RPGs. I do like RPGs, just the good ones.
I felt like I was being spoon fed everything to continue on with the game. It wasn't challenging at all. I had to quit after playing this game for about an hour. I kept telling myself it will get better, and it never did.
Sorry folks, but Star Wars games like the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series, Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series, and even the Rebel Assault games were better than this crap.
You want a good RPG from Bioware? Play Mass Effect. You want a good RPG period? Play Lost Odyssey, or Diablo, or Titan's Quest, or the Elder Scrolls series, or the Fallout series, or Final Fantasy. Just not this game.
This is but a taste of the Dark Side... (2008-10-09)
Let me preface this by saying this game is awesome! So why four stars? Mostly because of some systemic issues that I came across and one thematic reason that didn't fit well with me. Other than that this game is simply brilliant. Taking Star Wars into the realm of role playing was obviously a great idea. The tabletop game looks fun as it is, but to branch into the realm of video games, I suspect, is just as fun. I've played Star Wars games on and off since "Dark Forces II" came out years ago, but I wouldn't say I'm an absolutely die hard fan of them. However, I'm hoping "Knights of the Old Republic" will spawn a long running string of similarly designed Role Playing games!
RPG's are probably my favorite format for video games (I still haven't decided if I really like them more than FPS or if they simply tie). The game that really got me into RPG's was Diablo and it's because it didn't use the very common turn based system that was used in games like Final Fantasy. Now a huge amount of RPG's released over the years have followed this kind of methodology in copying the fast paced Diablo format where the user gets to hack away at enemies in a button mashing frenzy. "Knights of the Old Republic" uses more of a turn based combat system. Which I really didn't think I would like at first, but I didn't mind it to much in this one. It gives you the time you need to setup your attacks and choose force powers if you want to use them in combat. Some people might find this boring because you don't have to really physically participate in the combat, instead simply watch your character execute the moves, but I still managed to enjoy my time in this game. At least I get to manually control where my character goes and whom I interact with. I personally found the game play enjoyable.
Another major plus for this game is that you definitely get your moneys worth! I logged nearly 60 hours in my process of completing this game and you can play the game multiple ways! Basically if you play it as a Dark Side character you get different options than you would a Light Side character, and each side has different endings. This at least makes it worthwhile to play through the game twice logging approximately 120 hours of game play in all! This, of course, is provided it doesn't go faster the second time around... which it probably will take less time.
Anyway, I played through the game as Dark Side and this is where my initial hang-up came in. Based on the movies and other things I've read in the Star Wars universe I just didn't feel like they really captured the ethos of the Dark Side. In this game you had to do randomly cruel actions in order to earn Dark Side points and I really didn't like that. While the Dark Side is unforgiving and cruel, I don't feel it's a chaotic cruelty. It's more of a measured cruelty that's motivated by a need for power. Arbitrary cruelty doesn't really have much of a result in this game, you don't gain anything from it (other than Dark Side points) and I just think that doesn't work towards the true Dark Side motivations. Now I've played both "Knights of the Old Republic" games and I really liked two better in this regard. I think it captured the Dark Side much more correctly. Whereas in this one it's very difficult to actually play as a Dark Side character most of the time. In some situations I didn't have any option, but to give an answer that yielded me Light Side points and this just seemed stupid to me because my character was so heavily weighted to the Dark Side at that time. Not to mention one of the major ways you earn Dark Side points is by being mean to your own team, this just seemed foolish. If you were really Dark Side you wouldn't be blatantly mean to the team you were leading, you would coax them into wanting more power or vengeance etc. This doesn't come into play until the second half. The only time I really felt like I was truly playing a Dark Side character was when the big plot twist was revealed, after that I got very heavily into the story line and moved this game up a notch in my rating scale. (Very very VERY awesome plot twist by the way!)
The second issue I had with the game was how heavily laden the game was with glitches. Now I tried playing through it on my Xbox 360, so you'd think the game would actually process smoother, not so at all. It is especially jumpy during talking sequences between characters and it has an extremely difficult time processing a battle with a large amount of enemies. This becomes detrimental in the later battles on the Star Forge where you have to fight through so many Sith that the system can barely process all the blaster fire and light saber duels! Now, I also tried playing this game on my original Xbox a long time ago and basically what happened there is it had an in game error and crashed the whole system. My original Xbox never worked again and I had to purchase a new one, thus I played this on the 360 to hopefully avoid that. Well, the glitches are still rife throughout my game play, but at least it didn't destroy my Xbox this time. (Please note: The game more than likely didn't destroy my original Xbox, but probably had more to do with its age and the amount of use it had received over the years. I just have a natural fear now that it happened!)
Overall this is an incredibly good game. It's pretty well thought out and probably a superb game if you play as a Light Side character, because the story-line probably has a much better flow. You visit multiple worlds throughout this game and each world is simply HUGE. It's one of the reasons it takes so long to play the game, especially if you like to play a game thoroughly like me (i.e. making sure every inch of a map is shown). Again, the major flaw, to me, aside from the programming glitches, was the Dark Side story line is lacking. Anyway, I think the processing would have been superior on a PC at this point. I would definitely list this as one of my must play RPG's, because despite it's flaws it really is that fun and if you're a die hard Star Wars fan, I doubt you'll be disappointed.
Best Star Wars game, Best RPG of the last 5 years (2008-09-25)
Since I got this game I've beaten it 3 times. There's a reason this game won so many awards. It's amazing and if your a star wars fan and haven't played it already your missing out. This game is nearly perfect. Amazing story with one of the best twists ever. Amazing characters. Just an amazing star wars experience that has great replay value.
I woke up this morning with a terrible urge to play KOTOR... (2008-08-10)
Its been out for over five years at this point, KOTOR, but that did not stop me from waking up this morning with a terrible, life-altering need to play the game. Light and Dark side, male and female, I've played it all - and yet I still, after all the replays and years, love the game. Sure, five years later it looks a little simple and choppy compared to its grandchild, Mass Effect, but the storyline is something so captivating and the charectors so intriuging that I keep coming back time and time again.
*SPOILER* So, you're the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Reven, and the Jedi have managed to capture you and reprogram your brain so that your litterally tabla rasa, with the ability to fall to the darkside (thus proving that we cannot escape our pasts, that if you become evil, you were always dark) or rise into the glory of the light (proving that we choose to become what we do, and that circumstance is all that seperates the light from the dark). As you play you fall or rise according to your actions, all the while discovering more about your past and decay of the Republic, and can fall in love with your saviours and, in some cases, take them down with you. Save the galexy or destroy it. *End SPOLIERS*
But it is not just good vs evil, KOTOR is about what makes humans human, Jedi Jedi, and Sith Sith. KOTOR is far from a simple button-masher, it is an insight into Reven's psyche and your own. A must play for any serious Xbox player.
Didn't get game of the year for nothing. (2008-07-22)
I'm going to keep it short and sweet. This game is amazing, if you like star wars and if you like video games get this one. It's fun and challenging and good for any star wars fan. It got game of the year in like 2003 (i can't remember exactly) from at least 5 different magazines and websites. super fun don't pass it off.
